Scotch College

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I've heard that money is ruining football. This is possible. Money can create problems. Throw money at football and you ruin a sport. It becomes an industry.

A sole parent recently lamented to me that in raising her son she gave him 'everything' he ever wanted. If she could do it again she would do it different. Over indulgence is a recipe for future pain. A child is a wonderful thing, but a child can be ruined.

The excessive wealth of ancient Rome led Juvenal to remark 'a luxury more ruthless than war broods over Rome'. Seneca agreed. He said 'money is the ruin of the true honour of things...we ask not what a thing truly is but what it costs'. Could wealth really ruin a society?

When the Beatles sang 'Just give me money/that's all I want', the elders tut, tut-ed and the young laughed. It was a humorous and rebellious overstatement. After all, they came back with 'Love is all you need'. It's different today. The slogan from the movie 'Wall Street' seems to be accepted wisdom: 'Greed is Good'.

In the World Vision Ethics and Values Project, Anglican minister Alan Nichols, has suggested that language is an important tool in re-defining how we think. He points out that Common wealth which used to mean 'that which belongs to the public'. Now it means 'What is available to be privatised'. Best Practice, which used to mean 'What is best for people's social well being' becomes 'That which is most efficient by reducing wages'. Alas, Economic Indicators become the 'basic measure of social well being'.

'The man of the age' was the heading over a satirical letter from Werner Pelz of Healesville (The Age, Letters, 16 May). His remarks were addressed to 'Dear James Packer, ..you and your esteemed father deserve not only Fairfax but Australia.. You say you are the luckiest man in the world.. ..always had all you ever wanted...still have all you want.. no more you can want...except more...you prove yourself to be the man for this age'.

As if this wasn't enough Paul Baxter of Mitcham in the same letters column described Melbourne's new Casino as 'a cathedral to the most powerful and universal god that mankind ever worshipped'. He ventures the opinion 'I would have preferred a temple to Aphrodite rather than to Mammon, as I think her clients would have got better value for their money'. The reality is that Aphrodite and Mammon are both tyrants. In their proper place they serve an important, essential and even wonderful role. But their role is service. When sex and money rule our lives hearts are restless and grief is close. The life of a society can be spoiled.

Songwriter Leonard Cohen says:

His insight, overlooked at our personal and social peril, is amplified by the Jewish writers of the Christian New Testament. Both sex and money are to serve the interests of a greater god. The greater God is Love (1 John 4:8).

In the service of other gods, sex is reduced to a commodity, as in the 'sex industry'; or worse, transformed into an instrument of hatred. In the service of the God who is Love, sex becomes sublime (Song of Songs 8:10); and a metaphor for the ineffable (Revelation 19:7).

Where money is concerned, like the Beatles, we usually want a dollar each way. But Jesus is plain. 'You cannot serve both God and Money.' (Luke 16:13) The service of mammon yields tragic results because 'the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.'(1 Timothy 6:10).

The choice is really unambiguous; 'love's the only engine of survival'. Unless love reigns, money and sex both look tawdry. In its service they both have dignity. Love is the God to serve. As Augustine said 'You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.' Where do we enter the service of this 'God who is Love'?

A cross marks the spot. 'On your knees boy' (U2).

Rev Graham Bradbeer